Tulloch of Assery

Chambered Cairn

Tulloch of Assery (Chambered Cairn) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 6 images, 2 fieldnotes, 1 weblink, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

Images (click to view fullsize)

Fieldnotes

The most picturesque site possible on a beautiful sunny evening to find two relatively well preserved chambered cairns - there's another nearby, by the way. Also the reason I thought it's high time I began to contribute to TMA - this is what TMA's all about.

I would re-enforce the 'wellies needed' bit - even my winter mountain boots were no match for Loch Calder and I ended up in way past my knees trying to cross to cairn B after taking them off..... much to the amusement of local fishermen.

I'd say your best bet is to use the concrete 'dam' wall and advance to each site through the trees -but watch your eyes!

Wellies needed !
Visible from the road, go down the hill through the gate into the woods then slowly pick your way through the trees. Two cairns right on the edge of the loch . Couldnt get too close because of the water and we were running out of time. Oh where does the time go?

Miscellaneous

A well-preserved, short, horned cairn , probably
the earlier of the two chambered cairns known as the Tullochs of Assery . Excavation by Corcoran in 1961, in advance of the raising of the level of Loch Calder, revealed an apparently unique plan of two chambers set back to back and approached by passages through the north and south facades. Finds from the excavation are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).
Visited by OS 3 November 1964; NMAS 1977.

Corcoran's excavation remains open but otherwise the cairn is well-preserved although the waters of the loch lap the margins and have caused some damage.
Visit by OS 17 August 1981.

Links

From the 'B' cairn - a piece of human vertebra with a stone arrowhead firmly stuck in it. Nasty. You can weave a story around it of murder or warfare or daft accident, a human story from the Neolithic. But one thing is sure, it can't have been a very pleasant incident for the poor beggar that got shot, can it.

(And I suppose they had to label it somewhere. But did they really have to label it right there?! No sense of aesthetics.)